Best Public Schools in Basin, WY

Basin has two schools in Big Horn County School District #4: Riverside Middle/High School, serving grades 6–12, and Laura Irwin Elementary, serving PK–5. In 2025–2026, both schools had results above Wyoming’s in many of the grades and subjects reported, but performance varied considerably across grades. Because the schools serve different grade spans, their test results are not a fair head-to-head comparison; their SchoolDigger rankings also draw on different statewide school pools. The clearest area-wide concern is Riverside’s grade 10 math result: 27.8% proficient, 17.2 percentage points below the state.

Riverside’s most striking strengths were in grade 8: 88.2% were proficient in ELA, 27.3 points above Wyoming, and 76.5% in science, 28.4 points above. Its grade 7 ELA result was also below the state, at 45.5% versus 56.5%. At Laura Irwin, grade 5 stood out, with 68.4% proficient in ELA (7.1 points above the state) and 73.7% in math (12.7 points above). Its lowest reported comparison was grade 3 math, at 54.6% versus 61.2% statewide. Riverside also reported a 92.0% graduation rate in 2024–2025, 8.9 points above Wyoming’s rate.

Recent changes were mixed rather than consistently upward or downward. Riverside’s grade 8 ELA rose 19.8 points from the prior year and science rose 18.6 points, while its average advantage over the state narrowed in ELA and science but widened in comparable math grades. Laura Irwin’s ELA advantage edged down, its math advantage held steady, and its grade 4 science advantage shrank from 7.9 to 0.9 points. SchoolDigger’s overall percentile ranking fell for Riverside, from the 94th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 54th in 2025–2026; Laura Irwin rose from the 35th to the 59th. Enrollment was similar—129 at Riverside and 122 at Laura Irwin—while the reported student-teacher ratios were 7.2 and 10.2, respectively. Free/reduced-lunch eligibility was 38.8% at Riverside and 48.4% at Laura Irwin; these are contextual observations, not explanations for results.